What does it feel like? I know people think about it when I describe darshan<\/i>, especially if they haven\u2019t experienced it themselves.<\/p>\n
It depends, you know. Depends on who it is \u2013 which person of God; depends on whether you know each other already and have an established relationship from before. Depends on what they are there for \u2013 to warn, to ask, to teach, to comfort.<\/p>\n
But if I had to generalize, I\u2019d say it feels like being restored to your true self. I usually have all sorts of anxieties and stress around me when I\u2019m spending karmic matter. It feels like taking other people\u2019s sin, but in atomic form, so it\u2019s not a coherent thing. When I spend it, I feel pain, and I mentally repeat \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d, without knowing exactly what I\u2019m sorry for, because it\u2019s too fragmented and garbled to carry any kind of information, but I\u2019m sincere regardless. But after being immersed in that for some time, it feels terrible. I\u2019m no longer sure of anything, because everything in my consciousness was sin, suffering and remorse for days, weeks, months\u2026 sometimes years. If it\u2019s years, I no longer know whether it\u2019s karmic transformation or have I been lost, fallen and rejected by God, and I can always think of reasons and rationalisations, and this anxiety makes me focus, makes me try to do everything right, cross every t and dot every i. I can\u2019t tell what God thinks about what I\u2019m doing, but I can at least try to do everything properly, trusting in what I remember of the truth that I saw, when I saw it, long ago, and trusting it\u2019s still the same, that nothing changed; but I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m never sure, and this uncertainty is amplified by the pain and remorse and suffering of karmic transformation.<\/p>\n
And when I am in the presence of God, it\u2019s always sudden, without any fanfare or introduction, or announcement. One moment there\u2019s only myself and the misery of what I\u2019m processing, and the next moment there is a presence, and the quality of that presence is like having a long, sharp thorn removed from my body \u2013 all the anxiety, the uncertainty, not knowing what God would say, what he would think about things I had to do in the mean time, about the terrible condition I\u2019m in because of all that stuff I\u2019m processing \u2013 it all vanishes instantly, because I know. Sometimes I feel information being passed, and sometimes not, but the presence itself is a truth of a higher order, and it makes me know things without words or thoughts.<\/p>\n
What can you know without words or thoughts? Well, I can know that I worried for no reason. If my old friend still sees me the same way, it means this shit didn\u2019t really stick to me, it didn\u2019t corrupt me, change me into something He would not want to be associated with. There\u2019s that sense of being with someone who was there with you before the world, before the stars, before all those things people assume were forever here, but we remember them being born or made. It\u2019s the sense of just being there and knowing that if one of us needs to go to hell to deal with some business, the other will watch his back, in such a serious and dedicated way that he\u2019ll have absolutely nothing better to do until I\u2019m safely out. That\u2019s what Lord Vishnu feels, to me. There are limits to what He can do here. However, the feeling of His presence alone tells enough \u2013 to Him, it doesn\u2019t matter that I\u2019m dying under a terrible burden, that I\u2019m all shades of fucked up, deprived of power, memories and my true being, trying to feel through darkness and remember who I am. He knows who I am, and He treats me as if I\u2019m my old self, in my full power, with all the stuff I can\u2019t even remember properly now. He doesn\u2019t treat me any differently \u2013 He\u2019s the same as when we had coffee up there, before the world. In a sense, He\u2019s the complete opposite to how humans treat me; they see my limitations and barely anything beyond them, and think I can\u2019t amount to much. He sees much more of me than I can even guess in this state, and shrugs the limitations off as incidental and irrelevant. No words exchanged, but all of it is felt, and the effect is profoundly restorative and healing. Just that feeling that He remembers me in my complete form, and this here \u2013 He understands it, and understands what will be when it passes, and looks forward to us having that coffee.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what it feels like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What does it feel like? I know people think about it when I describe darshan, especially if they haven\u2019t experienced it themselves. It depends, you know. Depends on who it is \u2013 which person of God; depends on whether you … Continue reading